Stranger to the Ground
by EvilIsntBorn337
Summary: Test pilot Killian Jones and engineer Emma Swan spend their days making history as part of the Avro Arrow program. When the program is suddenly cancelled and the jets ordered destroyed, the choice becomes whether to let it become a thing of the past or save a piece of their shared history.


Some days, Killian dreamed of living in the sky.

At 60,000 feet, the clear blue courted fantasies. Crisp and pristine, uninterrupted by commercial traffic at this height, it was addictively simple in a way nothing on the ground could ever be. Even the fact that he was breaking records and making history became irrelevant every time he flew, replaced by the heady feeling of cutting the air with his sleek jet travelling faster than sound itself. In this jet above all others, it was easy to think that the impossible was possible. He wanted to push it. He wanted to climb higher and go faster, draw looping shapes in the air with his contrail high above the clouds where nobody would see him. Above all, he never wanted to land.

Only four people in the world knew this jet as Killian did - the shape of the throttle and stick under his hands, the solid roar of the engines in his ears, the blinding white of the delta wing against the blue sky in his peripherals, and the knowledge in every part of him that this was Canada's jet, and he was Canada's pilot.

This jet would do great things one day, show the world what it was made of, but for now, Killian was content to be one of the four. To dream of blue skies and this jet, nothing in the world standing in his way.

* * *

 _The Arrow program has been cancelled._

The head of the testing program was still seated at the top of the conference table, his announcement ringing in the quiet room. Whether he was poised for questions or arguments, Killian didn't know. All he could do was stare at the man who had pushed both pilots and jets higher and faster and harder for _months_ now, and try to see the room around the sudden flash of blue in his gaze - the blue of that 60,000 foot sky he had so easily taken for granted. The jets had been ordered destroyed a few short weeks from now, and Killian wasn't stupid - with the government so concerned about security and with aviation fuel the price it was, there would be no more flights for a now-defunct interceptor.

Had it been any other news, one of his three fellow test pilots would have had a snappy remark or a protest or a question, he was sure of it. But today it was only stunned silence. When Killian chanced a glance at each of them, he saw in their eyes the same abyss he knew was in his. It wasn't just the hours of training rendered meaningless, or the job they suddenly didn't have – no, the worst thing was the _possibility_ now disappearing, the promise the jet held not just for Avro but for Canada suddenly gone, and the crushing knowledge that the flights still singing in his veins would become history, then nothing. It was that the project wasn't simply on hold, or being reassessed – it was the finality of _cancelled_. It was that soon, there would truly be nothing left of the years of work he and everybody else had put in.

A dark tangle of emotion was simmering behind Killian's ribs, but there was nowhere to let it out – nobody in this building to blame, nobody this side of Ottawa. He longed for the peace of the sky then, to channel everything he had into raw speed and lift. The irony of it was crushing. Instead, he let the screech of his chair speak for him as he pushed it back from the table, storming from the room without another word to anyone.

There had been a lot of doubt, at the start. Avro had never built a jet like this before, and everyone - from executives to engineers to mechanics to pilots - had been unsure of its performance. Killian's years of flight kept him from being fearful, but he still braced himself for disappointment at the start of every flight, expecting the plane to somehow fall short of the development team's estimates.

Nobody allowed themselves to indulge in blind faith for a brand new, untested jet, except for one.

"Going over Mach 1.5 is a pipe dream at this stage." A group of engineers had come down to the hangar in preparation to watch one of the test flights. In the building made of hard surfaces, their conversation carried easily over to the jet and to Killian as he went through his pre-flight check. He couldn't put a face to the voice, but he recognized it as the same man who kept airing doubts.

"It's tested well," another man said. "And if you take the speed the models flew when we launched them into the lake and do the calculations..."

"With the Iroquois engine, it'll hit Mach 2, easy. With the J75, we'll be lucky to get 1.6. _Maybe_ 1.75."

"You willing to put money on that?" This voice he knew, and not just because she was the only female engineer on the project - the only female engineer Avro had on staff, in fact, and the only female engineer Killian had ever met. But even without that, he would have known Emma Swan's voice, because in every meeting he had ever attended with the engineers, before and after every flight they came out to watch, hers had been the one voice siding against caution and uncertainty. Maybe she was smarter than the rest or maybe she was foolish, but she hadn't yet been wrong about what the jet she had designed could do.

"Ten dollars says it does Mach 1.75 or over," she continued. He looked over just in time to see her arch an eyebrow and throw a knowing smile at her fellow engineers. Killian dipped his head to check the landing gear, hiding his own answering grin in the process. He had faith in the jet because he flew it every week, but hers was something else.

"Ten says under 1.75." That was the second engineer who had spoken.

"Twenty says 1.5, no more." The first engineer still sounded smug, and when Killian looked back up, he could have throttled the man for the way he looked at Emma - like the bet was nothing, because what could she possibly know? "Sure you don't want to save your bet for the Mark 3 design?"

"Careful, John," she said, not cowed in the least by his teasing. "Otherwise I might have to call up Pratt & Whitney and tell them you don't think their engine can perform."

"It's simple math, sweetheart. And this jet is still a baby."

That made something sharp flash across her expression, fleeting but so strong Killian could see it even from a distance. Still, her voice was level as she said, "It's Canada's jet, boys. It'll do it - Mark 1 design, with the J75. So you'd all better get ready to pay."

She turned then, striding toward Killian and the tarmac beyond, her heels a sharp staccato against the concrete floor. He should have looked away - gotten back to the pre-flight check and not let on that he had been eavesdropping - but her confidence was catching. He let her catch his eye, waited for her eyebrow to arch in silent question, and winked at her - an unspoken answer to her challenge, an agreement to push the jet as fast as he dared. For it, for him, and for her.

She bit back a smile but couldn't keep it out of her eyes as she passed him and muttered _don't make me a liar._

It couldn't have been much more than an hour after the announcement before the unmistakable sound of heels on concrete echoed through the deserted hangar. Killian glanced at the new arrival but didn't stand, didn't hide the bottle of rum cradled in his lap, because heels in this place only ever meant one person.

"There's a meeting in five minutes you're on track to miss," Emma said in greeting, stopping a few paces away and looking down at him in his borrowed chair, still in the flight suit he had no need for anymore.

"I already got the news," he said darkly.

"So did everyone. This meeting's for the why."

"I don't think the why matters at this point, love. But do feel free to take notes for me."

"I'm not your secretary." She shot him a glare, but it was gone in moments, more habit than anything. Then, with a brief glance back the way she had come, she sighed and grabbed one of the mechanics' stools, settling beside him and holding her hand out wordlessly.

"It's the middle of a workday," he said, but handed her the rum regardless.

"I can't have you in here drinking alone."

He let that hang in the air a moment, gave her a chance to truly _feel_ the cavernous space that so easily swallowed him whole – the dim task lighting, the inherent echo of the high ceilings, and the unfairness of the jet in front of them, landing gear newly fixed and yet suddenly, permanently grounded. Her hand tightened on the neck of the rum bottle, and he could see the loss in her eyes, the same desire to hide from it that he felt, so finally he said, "And if I _want_ to be alone?"

"You knew I'd look for you here." Her voice was quiet, but the truth of her words was heavy between them. He hummed his agreement, but didn't carry the conversation further.

The first day they had met, he had been drawn to Emma not because she was the only woman at the initial briefing, but because of the dozens of Avro staff and test crew, hers were one of the only pairs of eyes skimming the arrow-straight lines of the jet as if she knew them – as if she felt them somewhere deep within her that the others could only pretend at. She was looking at the Arrow like that now, but like Killian, there was an unmistakable melancholy in her gaze.

"Are you back to England after this?" she asked suddenly, eyes still on the plane.

"I…hadn't thought about it." He had been on loan from the RAF for so long now, he had almost forgotten about the life in England that was ostensibly waiting for him. Even when he tried to summon an image of what life after this would be like, all he could see was clear blue skies and crisp sunlight shining through the canopy of a jet nobody had ever flown before, tens of thousands of feet above the ground. But instead of saying all that, he just shot the question back. "What are _you_ going to do?"

"Find a husband or take a typing class, probably." Her expression was dark, begging him not to push, but he knew Emma too well to let that slide.

"What the bloody hell does that mean?"

"Think about it – Avro's down one major project, and there are bound to be layoffs. I don't know what you think the market is for female aeronautical engineers, but let me tell you, it's not great." She took another long swig of the rum. He didn't know how to fill the silence, but then she continued, quiet and bitter, "I got lucky this time, but nobody else is going to need an engineer badly enough to hire me twice."

"But you worked on the Arrow!"

"So did a lot of men."

"The Russians just sent up a satellite," he protested. "You know NASA's going to want to be next."

She actually laughed. "I've got a better chance of the Arrow somehow surviving than I do working for NASA."

"Yeah, well the world isn't known for making the greatest decisions lately," he said.

Her gaze followed his out to the tarmac, to the line of four jets that would never see the sky again, and she didn't need to speak for him to know she agreed.

Even two short weeks after the announcement, Killian's patience was already spent. Still under contract with Avro, he showed up at the plant every day, but with nothing to do, he could only spend his hours haunting the hangars, committing every detail of the jet he loved to memory. That, and pacing restlessly through the halls, his displeasure on full display as though someone might see and realize what a bad decision they were making.

It was on one of those walks that he nearly ran into Emma. He didn't realize it was her until she was stopped right in front of him, until she caught his gaze with a brow already raised at his dark expression.

"You know, you're not going to make any friends if you keep glaring at everyone like that," she pointed out needlessly.

"You say that," he said, "as if I'm in the market."

"Baby." She rolled her eyes at him, and if the challenge didn't mean so much to both of them, he would have conceded. "Well, _this_ friend thinks you look like you need a cup of burnt cafeteria coffee."

"I'm not in the mood, love, but thank you for the offer."

"Did you consider that maybe _I_ need a cup of coffee and that a gentleman would insist on joining me?" Her expression still sparkled with mirth, but there was something in her eyes, something in the tightness of her grip on the roll of drawings beneath her arm, that said she wasn't necessarily joking.

"I _am_ always a gentleman, so after you, milady." He gestured grandly down the hall, earning himself a twist of a grateful smile. "I'll even pay."

"Coffee is free for employees."

"Then I'll happily treat you to _two_ cups."

They made the rest of the trip in companionable silence - easy in the still-bustling hallways - and only when they were seated with their drinks did the tense set of Emma's shoulders and the way she fidgeted in her seat become too much to bear in silence.

"Swan, what?" He covered one of her hands with his own, stilling the tap of her fingertips against the tabletop. "You look like you're about to take off."

"Nothing, I-" He could see the lie ready in her eyes, but when she looked up and caught his gaze on her, she sighed. "Have you...heard about things going missing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Parts, drawings, schematics...all suddenly misplaced, all in the past week?"

He put it all together instantly. "The Arrow?"

"What else would be worth stealing?" Her free hand came up to rest gracefully on the roll of drawings on the table beside them. "We're storing it all now until it's...time, but there's a lot nobody can find. And considering everything has been ordered destroyed, people are concerned."

"I'm sure that's putting it lightly." He snorted. "Though I hear Gordon's still not thrilled about the cancellation, so maybe it's sanctioned."

" _Not thrilled_." She laughed into her cup. "Now who's putting it lightly?"

He took a sip of his own coffee, and then, with a quick glance at the tables on either side of them, muttered, "Can you really blame them, though? For wanting to keep this alive even a little bit longer?"

"I want it as much as the next person, but I also want a career after this." She looked at him significantly. "So if you know anyone, maybe tell them to be careful. That people are watching now."

Then it hit him. "You think _I'm_..."

"I don't know, Killian, and I'm not asking. All I know is you care about the program more than almost anyone here, and I..." There was something complicated in her eyes just then, but he wouldn't have known what it was if he didn't have the same words on the tip of his tongue every time they spoke. "I don't want you to get in trouble, because of this or anything else," she finished. "That's all. And if there's anyone here you care about, make sure to pass that along."

"I will."

"Good." She looked at her watch, then drained her cup and stood. "I've got to get these to the records room before someone misses me. Thanks for the coffee."

"Any time." He stood with her, half-full cup forgotten. "But Emma? Make sure those get where they need to go, all right?"

She searched his eyes for a moment, and then a small smile played on her lips as she heard the deeper meaning in his words - _if there's anyone here you care about_ … "I will."

"Good." He gave her an identical grin before she turned away, and he might have said something else, might have followed her, if Wing Commander Nolan hadn't taken her place in front of him the moment she had gotten far enough away.

"Glad I found you, Jones." David Nolan was usually the friendliest of all the Wing Commanders Killian had ever met, on this side of the pond or the other, but today, his voice was serious. "You've been requested for a meeting. Privately."

Still reeling from the two hour meeting that had instantly changed his foreseeable future, Killian left the plant early that afternoon, electing to walk the dozen or so blocks to his flat in hopes that the journey would help him sort everything out. He had expected to return to England now that the program was cancelled, but not so soon, and not like this.

He didn't want to reflect on all the things he would miss about this country or about this project, but he had doomed himself to the company of his thoughts with the long walk. With his departure so imminent, he couldn't push those thoughts aside. It had been undeniable for a long time that there were things England just didn't have, but the list was suddenly crushing. Local maple syrup, for one thing; real winters, with snow almost every day; or cities that all but shut down when the Leafs played. It didn't have sleek white jets that left the world in their wake, or skies so blue they called pilots into the air. England didn't have gossip about know-it-all engineers and the words they had to eat when they were proven wrong, or burnt cafeteria coffee. England didn't have blonde hair and green eyes and a cutting sense of humour that never failed to pull a smile out of him. He'd be able to get a decent cup of tea for the first time in over a year, but suddenly that wasn't enough.

The minute he got home, he was on the phone to the Avro plant.

"Checking up on me, Flight Lieutenant?" He could hear the smile in Emma's voice when she answered.

"Someone's got to keep an eye on you engineers."

"I imagine that's hard to do when you're not on site," she said, her voice heavy with curiosity. "Word travels fast around here, you know. Especially after Crawford Gordon himself holds long meetings his secretaries know nothing about."

An inexplicable surge of pride shot through him, but he shouldn't have been surprised - he had known long before this how bright a star Emma Swan truly was.

He wanted to tell her everything, but it was bad form to break the news of his departure over the phone, and more than that, he wanted to see her. Needed to see her.

"Go to dinner with me," he said. A year of working together, months of tentative friendship, and the request was finally out there.

"Pardon?" But he knew she had heard him.

"I'd like to take you to dinner tonight, if you're free."

"I didn't know hotshot test pilots did dinner." She didn't even miss a beat, and he didn't know whether it was her wit or because the invitation was long overdue.

"We already covered that I'm a gentleman, so you shouldn't be surprised." Smile still clear over the line, he didn't really need confirmation of her answer, but still... "What do you say?"

"I'll be finished with work at seven," she said. Her voice quieted a shade, the conversation suddenly private and close. "You know the place."

Killian hadn't been nervous until he saw Emma waiting for him outside the plant promptly at seven. It didn't matter that she was in the same skirt suit he saw her in regularly, even if the sedate brown fabric did hug her body like it had been tailor-made - in the golden evening light, hair in soft waves after having been in her habitual bun all day, he was suddenly struck that he had asked her to _dinner_.

One familiar smile, though, when she sank into the passenger seat, and it was as easy as if they were in the cafeteria or the hangar or the hallway - as easy as it had always been with her. It carried through dinner at a small Italian restaurant, the two of them tucked in a back booth talking about work and the city and the snow swirling outside, and all the way back out to the car. It was at the curb that they both balked, eyes catching at the same time, because the night didn't feel over yet.

"Airport?" Emma suggested, as though Killian would have ever said no.

The roads were quiet on the short drive to Toronto International, despite the snow only falling in gentle flakes. It was the kind of night that courted silence, and Emma didn't seem in any rush to fill it. It was only after Killian had parked on the access road nearest to the runway, only after they both watched one plane come and go until its lights were pinpricks in the sky, that she brought up the future.

"Do you think you'll fly commercial after this?" she asked quietly.

"I don't think jet transitions well to commercial airliner," he said. "Besides, the RAF gets me back right away, and I fly what they tell me."

"Do they have anything supersonic?"

They did, but he knew what she was asking. He shook his head. "Not like this."

Emma just nodded, but the silence was suddenly too heavy. Her eyes were full of a familiar kind of knowledge, as though she saw right through him and wasn't fooled.

"Would you..." he continued, but faltered because this had to be asking too much so early on. And yet... "Have you ever considered a holiday in England?"

"I could be persuaded," she said, ducking her head slightly in a poor attempt to hide her smile. "Would I have to book this trip soon?"

"You might." Her tone had been teasing, but Killian's was anything but, and she heard it instantly. The smile fell from her face and she looked up, searching his eyes for the answer she already knew.

"When?"

"Soon." He leaned back in his seat and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "That meeting today...I've got...duties in England that are calling me back sooner than I had planned."

"Without a plane to fly, I suppose it was only a matter of time." Emma slid infinitesimally closer on the bench seat, and then the soft poke of her elbow was in his side. "So what, don't you have any friends in England? Need to import them from overseas?" She was trying for levity, but her voice was strung tight, and he was tired of falling back on humour. He turned to face her more fully, barely a foot apart now, and cocked an eyebrow at her attempted joke.

"Is that what we're calling this?" He reached up to trace the lie of her cheekbone, fingers threading through her hair softly, tentatively, and she didn't pull away. "Then no, I don't have any-" he brushed his free fingers along her jaw, but she didn't need any encouragement to tilt her head, to lean in to meet him just as he finished with "- _friends_ in England."

Killian's maiden flight in the Arrow had been both terrifying and exhilarating. He had been flying for years, but as he sat at the end of the taxiway with nothing but pavement and sky in front of him, it felt like his very first time. It wasn't necessarily fear making his heart pound in his ears, though the possibility of getting up in the air only to plummet back to earth was always in the back of his mind; no, it was _potential_ tumbling through his veins, and the desire to be worthy of this - to prove that this could work and, more than that, it could be extraordinary.

Even at takeoff, even on his first slow, gentle passes up in the clouds, Killian knew it would be.

No sooner had he dropped Emma off at her house was Killian back at the plant, but this time he drove around back, headlights off and flight suit already on. The explanation for what was really calling Killian back to England had almost come out too many times during the drive back to Emma's and the subsequent quiet conversation in her driveway. Even so, he knew that he couldn't burden her with this secret - couldn't risk her freedom or the career he knew lay ahead of her - so he left her with a soft _goodbye_ and one gentle, final kiss he hoped lingered.

As he pulled up to the hangar, the doors slid open a fraction, and as much as he didn't want to, he had to let other things take precedence over the image of Emma lit gold by the glow of the airport - flight paths and remote refuelling stations, code words and the names of RAF officers he had never known, and how he was going to explain all this to his brother when he showed up unannounced to their family farm in Kent.

"Ready to go?" Wing Commander Nolan met him at the door of the car, his voice low despite he and Killian being the only ones on the tarmac.

"Yes, sir." Killian stepped out onto the asphalt and shut the door softly, a barely audible _click_ the only sound. "Everything's set?"

"She's fuelled and ready, Gordon's people are manning the control tower, and RAF Manston knows to expect you." He clapped Killian on the shoulder once and started back toward the hangar. "You're comfortable with the route?"

"Yes, sir." It was why Nolan and the head of the company had come to Killian out of the four test pilots, after all - besides his connections to the RAF and reason to be in England indefinitely, his operational training was well suited to flying what was essentially a mission with barely any prep time. It wasn't ideal, but it was possible, and that had to be enough.

"All right." Major Nolan gave one final, definitive nod, then took up a position at the hangar door and let Killian continue on to the jet alone.

This particular jet's landing gear had been repaired recently enough that it was still off the flight line, and Killian spotted the head mechanic doing a final check of the wheels straight away. Beyond a curt nod, though, the other man stayed under the jet, leaving Killian to conduct his final pre-flight check in peace. The jet looked strange with its national markings and registration number painted over, but as he ran his hands along the smooth sheets of metal, it still felt familiar. If he'd had doubts about what he had agreed to, they were all gone now, replaced by the familiar angles and planes of the jet he had helped build.

It was over almost too soon, and then he was climbing into the cockpit for what would be the last time, already shot through with the adrenaline that was pounding in time with his heartbeat. There were still so many ways it could go wrong, so many ways they could all get caught. But then Major Nolan opened the hangar door, saluted Killian from the ground, and the runway was _there_. The lights were dimmer than regulation, but still enough to see by - still enough to pave the way into the sky Killian had never stopped loving.

The takeoff was quick and efficient, and then he was in the air, turning away from the plant and the four jets that hadn't been so lucky. The city was spread out below him in a grid of winking lights, deceptively muted from this high up with the noise of the engines roaring in Killian's ears. The proximity to the airport would hopefully keep this flight a secret long enough for him to get far enough away, but as his eyes skimmed the map of the city below, Killian wondered whether one citizen would know better. In this part of the city, flights were common, but you didn't work on the Arrow for years without the roar of this particular jet finding its place behind your breastbone.

He pushed the throttle a little more as he shot over the outskirts of town. If Emma hadn't heard his goodbye for what it was earlier, she would certainly hear it now.

Three years later, Killian still couldn't quite believe they had gotten away with it. From the moment he had crossed Lake Ontario, his flight to England had been driven by pure adrenaline, and at each stop he made to refuel, he had been convinced that Gordon's and Nolan's contacts would fall through, that the military police would be waiting. But they hadn't been, and after a heart-pounding journey from Manston to the old quonset hut tucked in the forest where the Arrow now lived, the entire thing almost...faded. Until today.

Killian's eyes scanned the crowd at the airport gate for the dozenth time, but this time they caught on a flash of gold. The past came rocketing back as Emma finally cleared the crowd, spotting him almost immediately, a smile he had missed for too long spreading over her face. She didn't even know about the jet he had smuggled across the ocean, but just the look of her made him remember those months in Malton when their shared dream had been a living, breathing thing.

"And here I was, all excited about taking a traditional English taxi," she teased in greeting, but walked straight into his arms.

"I can't leave one of NASA's top engineers to public transport," he said, mock-aghast.

"Not top engineer." But her blush gave away her pride, and he couldn't blame her. He had written to her as soon as he landed in England, apologizing for - yet not explaining - his sudden departure, but it had taken her months to forgive him enough to answer. When she did, though, her correspondence was consistent, and when he had gotten the news of her new job, he had practically burst with pride himself. His brother was certainly tired of hearing about it.

"I'll forgive you _this time_ ," she continued. She let him take her single bag but didn't let it stop her from nudging him with her elbow. "But don't take that to mean I don't want the full tour while I'm here - Big Ben, the Queen, all the touristy things. All right?"

"As you wish, love." He led the way to the car with a smile on his face, relishing the image of taking the city by storm with Emma Swan on his arm. He planned to lay out the whole of England at her feet in the two weeks she was here, even the part only a handful of others knew about - the secret whose reveal was long overdue.

He imagined Emma must have put it all together, his sudden departure along with the Arrow's, despite Wing Commander Nolan's assurances that he had set the groundwork for a perfect cover. Suspicions or not, not knowing must have been slow torture as she watched the planes slowly being disassembled, years of hard work suddenly nothing. It was agonizing enough for Killian despite the final jet hidden deep in his family's property, accessible only to him. Even the nights when he went to check on it, ghosted into the quonset hut and tugged back a corner of the tarp to let the moonlight dance along the sleek white paint, it was the shape of Emma's hands he saw running along the curves of the jet, the one she had never doubted. So he didn't intend to make her wait any longer.

"But first," he continued with a private grin, "I'd like to introduce you to an old friend."


End file.
